The invention concerns the field of wireless communications networks, in particular of the GSM type, the acronym for the English expression “Global System for Mobile Communication”.
It relates more particularly to a method and system for the automatic configuration of mobile appliances in networks using a subscriber identification card known as a SIM or U(SIM), the acronym for the English expression “Universal (Subscriber Identity Module)”.
At the present time access to complex data of the multimedia, photo, video or audio type via various communication media, protocols or services such as WAP, MMS, GPRS, e-mail, SyncML, etc, requires a prior configuration of the mobile appliances by means of many complex parameters.
There exist various ways set out below of configuring a module. There exists in particular a preconfiguration carried out by the manufacturer in the factory or a more or less manual configuration carried out by the subscriber with the help of a customer service.
The configurations can be carried out step by step with oral explanations from a customer service or following a request from the subscriber on the Internet for a configuration requirement giving rise to an automatic configuration by short messages of the SMS type or making available a description of the operations to be carried out on an Internet site.
These operations being relatively lengthy and complex for the user, the assignee recently presented an automatic appliance configuration method in its offer entitled “GemConnect Device Manager”, which consists, each time the SIM card is inserted in an appliance, of offering to the user a configuration of his appliance; in the case of acceptance, the configuration is carried out automatically via the network.
However, at the present time, when the user has several appliances, or he changes locations frequently, in particular changing countries with different network coverage and the operator at that place does not offer the best services and/or accesses, the user does not know which appliances support the services permitted by his appliance and his subscription and whether it is necessary to effect or re-effect a configuration for optimum functioning.
Since exchanges between the mobile appliances and the card and the network are not standardized, it is not possible at the present time to interrogate the mobile in order to know whether it has been configured and in what manner.